DIY Arduino or "The DIY-Duino"

Introduction: DIY Arduino or "The DIY-Duino"

To quote the Arduino website: "Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments."

I got one a while ago and life has never been the same. Here is the official website for Arduino: http://www.arduino.cc/

There are a bunch of tutorials that show you how to build your own Arduino on a breadboard, called Hack-duinos or something similar. While these are handy, I prefer to use more solid electronic devices. So I build them with a home made PCB and solder all the components on there myself.

Some may say, "This task seems time consuming and a tad expensive... Why not just kerplunk the 30-some-odd bucks for an REAL Arduino?" Well, some of us enjoy the craziness of making something completely from scratch -- and in doing so, learning more about the device you are using.

This tutorial will take you through all the steps of making your own printed circuit board(PCB), building an Arduino or "DIY-Duino" and loading your own programs/sketches onto the board you have built.

Step 1: Materials List -- for All Steps

COMPLETE MATERIALS LIST You will find detail on these materials throughout the specific steps of this instructable.

Photo Paper High-quality photo paper with a glossy finish is the best to use.

Laser Printer Or copies from a place like Kinkos or Staples.

Fine grain sandpaper To rough up the board and make it able to absorb the pattern better.

Common, houshold tape For securing the pattern to the copper board

Piece of scrap cardboard This will be your makeshift ironing board.

Paper towels To put over your board before ironing.

Clothes Iron Use one you don't mind being ruined. Chances are, it will get funky.

Plastic container To bathe your board in warm water after ironing.

Tweezers Not necessary, but can be helpfull for peeling off transfer remnants.

//------- ETCHING MATERIALS LIST -------//Jug of Muriatic Acid You can get this at the hardware store.

Container of Laquor Remover Removes the toner once the pattern is etched. Also useful if you make mistakes on transfering your pattern. You can remove the toner and try again. You can get this at the hardware store

Container of Hydrogen Peroxide Any Grocery Store

Standard kitchen paper towels Use for the ironing, agitating the acid solution, and removing the toner with the lacquer remover

(2) Plastic containers (1 for the acid mixture, one to rinse, one to bathe the PCB in hot water)

Step 2: About Making PCBs

Just as there are several ways to build your own Arduino, there are likely just as many, if not more, ways to create your own printed circuit board or PCB. This tutorial opens with an in-depth lesson on how to make your own. I've tried several methods of making PCBs, and what follows is a procedure that has worked the best for me.

A little background first... People who are new to making their own PCBs often call this method "The Toner-Transfer Method". When searching for how to make your own PCBs on the Net, this is the phrase that will often come up. However, those who have been making these for a while will correctly call it the "Gootee Method" -- and the PCBs themselves are called "Gootee Boards". The reason is this -- the most in-depth documentation on how to etch your own PCB (at least that I know of) has been compiled and tested by Thomas Gootee.

Step 3: Transfering the Pattern - Materials

Photo Paper High-quality photo paper with a glossy finish is the best to use.

Clothes Iron Use one you don't mind being ruined. Chances are, it will get funky.

Piece of scrap cardboard This will be your makeshift ironing board.

Arduino Pattern sheetDownload the Pattern file here You must use this file to ensure the proper resolution and size of the image. You don't want to print and etch your board and have it be the wrong size.

Paper towels To put over your board before ironing.

Plastic container To bathe your board in warm water after ironing.

Common, houshold tape For securing the pattern to the copper board

Tweezers Not necessary, but can be helpfull for peeling off transfer remnants.

Fine grain sandpaper To rough up the board and make it able to absorb the pattern better.

Step 4: Cut Out the Copperboard and Sand It

Cut out the board Protect your eyes.

Use your dremel or a hacksaw and cut out the shape for your board.

Give yourself some space around the edges. I usually give myself about a 1/4 inch extra margin. Mostly, because I often add in risers or spacers when I'm done at each of the corners.

Spacers are good to use, because they keep your soldered bits off of the table or ground or any other surface. They protect your board from getting fried if it happens to come to rest upon a metal surface.

Now sand the board Sand the top of the copper with a fine sand paper. This gives it some more surface area for the toner to stick to.

Sand the edges too, because sometimes they can be sharp, and you don't want to cut yourself.

It's far easier to assemble a board when you don't have bandages on your fingers.

Step 5: Preparing the Pattern

If you have access to a laser printer or a laser copier, fantastic. If not, no problem, you'll let Staples or Kinkos or another copy place do that for you.

If you HAVE access to a laser printer: Put your photo paper in the printer and be sure that the glossy side is oriented correctly. You need the image to be printed on the glossy side. If possible, set the printer to print out with the maximum quality/toner thickness available. Print the Pattern file. Try not to touch the image area or get anything else on it. Any oils, abrasions or anything else will hamper the transfer.

If you DO NOT HAVE access to a laser printer: Print the Pattern file. Try to get the best, darkest quality printout possible. Bring the printout to your local copy store and have them make laser copies of it on high-quality photo paper. Explain to them what you are attempting to do with these copies. Occasionally, there will be someone working there that knows or has heard of what you're doing. Try not to touch the image area or get anything else on it. Any oils, abrasions or anything else will hamper the transfer.

Prepare the pattern Cut one of the patterns out. On 3 sides, trim close along the edge of the pattern. On one side, leave a little tab for you to hold on to. Again, you don't want anything to touch the image.

Step 6: The Transfer Procedure - Preparations

Transfer preparation/things to get ready Heat up your clothes iron, put it on the hottest setting -- High/Linen. With no steam. We want this sucka HOT! It's good to start your iron heating up while you get the other stuff ready. Be careful not to burn yourself or anything else! Be carefull to turn the iron off when you're done!

Step 7: The Transfer Procedure

Get a plastic container, large enough so the PCB can lay flat, I use a sandwich container, and fill it with hot water. This will bathe your PCB after your transfer the pattern.

Step 8: The Transfer Procedure

Cut out a piece of scrap cardboard for your ironing board.

I use pieces of cardboard box, usually just cutting off one of the flaps.

Place your cut and sanded piece of copperboard in the middle of the cardboard with the copper side facing up.

Lay your pattern face down on the copperboard.

Take a couple pieces of tape and secure the pattern to the copperboard.

Place a papertowel over the top of the copperboard.

This should protect your iron from the gunk that is created when you heat up the paper -- but I'm not making any promises.

If you don't want to ruin your iron, don't use a good one. You can usually get one cheap at a yard sale or a new one for less than $25.

Step 9: The Transfer Procedure

Transfering the Image When the iron is heated up, press down FIRMLY on the top of the papertowel, pattern and copperboard.

Hold it in place for one minute.

After a minute, remove the iron.

You should be able to make out the edges of the board through the paper towel.

Use the tip of the iron to go over the board bit-by-bit.

Take another minute to be sure you apply heat to each part of the board...

Go up and down, side to side and left to right.

Pay special attention to the edges.

In my experience, the edges are where the board/image gets the least ammount of heat.

Finally, for one more minute, hold the iron on the board again to finish up.

Caution, the board will be very hot!

Peel the paper towel off of the top.

If some papertowel sticks to the top, it's ok. This will loosten and be easy to remove in the water bath.

Step 10: The Transfer Procedure

Time for a bath! Place the board, face up in the plastic container of warm water and let it bathe for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, peel the pattern paper off.

In my opinion, the ironing the trickiest part of the entire procedure... If you've done a good job at ironing, the entire paper will peel off and you will be looking at a shiny copperboard with the black laser toner transfered onto it.

However, this will not likely happen. Do not be discouraged! What will likely happen is one of two things: 1. You peel the paper back and some or all of the paper comes off, but the pattern was not totally transfered either. 2. You peel the paper back and only some of it comes off, leaving behind some paper and a thin plastic.

In case 1: You haven't completely ironed the toner and it hasn't transfered to the board.

You are sadly out of luck -- only for the moment though. You will need to start again.

Hey, at least you have the copper cut out, right? And practice makes perfect... the best way to be an expert at something is to be a complete failure at it first.

The board on the left isn't totally messed up. In fact, I fixed it with a Sharpie... see below on how this works.

But you can see where the toner didn't completely transfer over to the board. On the left corner, the toner is faded -- thats because it's still stuck to the paper.

Now, the board below that one is a total mess. It's one of the first boards I ever tried to make. I'm not sure why I still have it, maybe just to show in this tutorial. You can see that its kind of corroded from sitting around. The main thing to look at is that the toner didn't transfer too well.

If this happens to your board, put it back into the water and let it soak over night. You'll easily be able to peel everything off in the morning.

After all the paper is removed, take some lacquor remover, dampen a papertowel with it, and wipe away all the toner.

Re-sand the copperboard, so that it looks clean and new and start again. Don't sweat it, you'll get it, trust me!

In case 2: You're left with some paper still stuck to the board. You may notice that there is a thin plastic layer that is sticking to the copper. This is what the pattern image was originally transfered on to.

You may also notice that there is some "plain" paper that comes off easily. Take your thumbs and rub off what you can of the "plain" paper.

Soak the board in the warm water bath for a nother couple minutes. Return and try to rub off more of the "plain" paper.

Eventually you'll be able to get everything off.

The photo has only a little of the plastic stuck to it. You can use your fingernails to peel off the plastic, because the transfered toner resists being chipped by your nails fairly well.

I also find that using some tweezers to peel off the thin plastic works too. BE CAREFULL though with the tweezers, because it IS possible to chip the pattern with them.

Also, you need to get ALL OF THE PAPER AND PLASTIC off of the board for the etching to work thoroughly. Often, I just remove what I can of the "plain" paper and then set the board in the bath for a couple hours.

When you return, you'll find that the plastic does not stick so much to the board and you can peel it off easily. Again, you can use tweezers, but use them carefully.

Step 11: The Transfer Procedure - Minor Touch-ups

OK, so you got all of the paper and plastic removed.

Double check your board. Make sure all lines connect properly.

Go over any nicks with a Sharpie permanent marker. I have one of the thin-line Sharpes for fixing these little nicks. Sharpie ink resists the acid.

If everything looks good, you are now ready to etch your board.

Step 12: Etching - Materials

Jug of Muriatic Acid You can get this at the hardware store.

Container of Laquor Remover This is for if you make mistakes on transfering your pattern. You can remove the toner and try again. You can get this at the hardware store

Container of Hydrogen Peroxide Any Grocery Store

Standard kitchen paper towels Use for the ironing, agitating the acid solution, and removing the toner with the lacquer remover

(2) Plastic containers (1 for the acid mixture, one to rinse, one to bathe the PCB in hot water)

Acid disposal container Size this, depending on how much you're using. See below on disposal.

Pair of plastic dishwashing gloves You can often find a better, more durable pair of gloves at the hardware store -- right near the muriatic acid oddly enough.

Other Protection Breathing and eye protection are essential.

1/4 Cup Measuring Cup Use one that you don't mind being destroyed. Once you use this to measure out the Muriatic Acid, It should only be used for this purpose. NEVER use it to measure food again.

Step 13: Etching - Precautions

First, some precautions Muriatic Acid is very dangerous, both to breathe, and to get on any part of your body. It will also destroy most of what it comes into contact with, metal, clothing.

Most important, protect your skin and eyes. I ALWAYS wear goggles and it's not even an option to not use plastic gloves.

Put on your eye protection. Put on your protective gloves. Put on your breathing protection. Make sure you are not wearing clothes that you want to keep clean. Chances are they will be ruined. It is best to do the etching outside, in a garage or basement, or in a bathroom. Somewhere where if you spill a little acid, it won't hurt anything.

If you can't do your etching outside, do it in a well-ventilated room, and be sure to protect anything you don't want completely ruined from the acid.

Basically the only thing that won't be runied by the acid is plastic.

Step 14: Etching - Preparations

The containers You will be using 3 containers. One container will hold your etching solution, the second will hold hydrogen peroxide only, and the third will be used to discard your solutions in a safe and proper manner.

The hydrogen peroxide container will be used to rinse off your board after it is finished etching.

Use the 1/4 cup measuring cup to portion out one 1/4 cup full of Muriatic Acid and two 1/4 cups full of hydrogen peroxide into one of your plastic containers.

Step 15: Etching - the Procedure

Check the copper board to be sure you have removed all traces of the photo paper.

You should have checked it over and made sure that all of the traces are completed, and there are no chips that would make an incomplete circuit.

If there are any chips or scratches, fix them with a Sharpie as described earlier.

Lets start etching! Gently place the board into the etching solution.

You will notice that the etching solution begins to change color.

This is the acid reacting to the copper and starting to dissolve it.

Agitate the container gently, so that the etching solution mixes over the submerged board. Use a paper towel to wipe the board while it's submerged.

This helps along the etching process.

After about 4 minutes, you will notice that the copper will begin to dissolve. Continue to wipe areas where there is still copper.

After about 5 minutes, your board should be completely etched.

The etching solution will have changed to a green color after reachint with the copper.

Remove the board and rinse it in the second container, the one that has just hydrogen peroxide.

This will dilute the remaining acid.

Now, it's not the best thing in the world to do, but we've diluted any solution still clinging to our board and most of the copper that has dissolved into the solution is diluted as well. So... take your board and rinse it under some water.

Here is what you should have.

You will notice in the photo attached that there is still some copper in the top right corner.

This should be ok.

But if this happens on your board and you want to remove it, just gently sand it off. Be careful not to sand off anything you don't want to!

The final step is to use lacquer remover to get the toner off.

Put some lacquer remover on a paper towel and wipe off the toner.

Do your best to get all of the toner off.

Your board should look like the final photo attached.

Rinse this puppy off once more and get ready to drill the holes for the components.

Step 16: Drilling Holes for the Components

Up until now, you could get by without a Dremel or other rotary tool. It may have been trickier, but do-able.

However, I must say, I can't imagine getting past this part with a normal drill.

First, I don't think they even sell 1/32" drill bits for normal drills. Second normal drills are just too cumbersome to do this delicate work. One slip and you've ruined your precious PCB.

So, do yourself a favor and score a Dremel or rotary tool. They are usefull for many more things than just making PCBs!

Put on your eye protection and carefully drill your holes.

Be carefull with both the PCB and the drill bit itself.

A 1/32" bit is really not much larger than a sewing needle and easy to break.

It's a pain to get half way through drilling and snap a bit. Then you either have to go to the hardware store and get another, or order one online. The hardware store near me doesn't even sell individual bits, they're in a package of different sizes. So it's $10 for one bit and five that I already have like three sets of.

If you order them online, you can buy them in a small cannister of 4. I think I paid $5 for one cannister. It's good to have extras, eventually you will break one.

Anyhow, carefully drill out the holes for your components. Start by drilling through the copper side. Then turn the PCB over to the plastic side and drill through the holes you've made -- just to be sure you have it going through clean.

Hold your PCB up to the light and check that you've drilled everything.

On this board, I've drilled places to add risers in the corners. It's a good idea to have these, so your board isn't sitting on the table and resting on its solder points.

Pat yourself on your back, you're now ready to assemble the components.

Step 19: Putting It Together

First, you have the naked board. It should be oriented with the copper facing away. You will be soldering the components on the plastic side only, NOT the side with the copper. Put the leads of the components through the board and solder them to the copper. The places where there are squares should be where the ground/negative lead of the component are soldered.

Start by soldering the DIP Socket for the ATmega328. DO NOT solder in the actual chip. It is always a good idea to use these Sockets, because you can remove your chip if you want to use it in another board or project or whatever. And desoldering them is a royal pain. Note the area where there is a little oval cut out. This is to let you know how the chip should be oriented. When you finally put your ATmega chip into the socket, you want to place it with the oval facing up. The top left of the chip is the reset. If you don't put the chip in right, nothing will work.

Add the capacitors and the voltage regulator. Important: The capacitors have a little white bar on one side. This is to let you know where to attach it to the ground. Attach the side with the white bar to where the square pad (ground) is and the other to the power. Do this for both of the capacitors. The voltage regulator needs to be soldered with the back of the "chair"/ the tall metal part facing out. You may need to file a little of the legs off of the voltage regulator, as the leads are often squarish and flat.

Add the little wires. You have three wires. It doesn't really matter what color they are, as I'm sure you know. Just as long as you know where they are supposed to go. For this circuit, you'll solder wires to span and attach to two grounds and one voltage. The white wires in the diagram are for ground and the red wire is for power.

Add the 22pf ceramic capacitors (2 of them) and the 16mHz crystal. It does not matter how the ceramic capacitors or the crystal are oriented. The crystal is a little wider than we need for this board, so you should bend the leads so that it will fit in snugly at the bottom. You don't want any components dangling.

Add the resistors. The resistors are 10K Ohm and 220 Ohm. The 10K Ohm resistor is banded brown, black, orange and gold and will provide resistance to the button. The 220 Ohm resistor is banded red, red, brown and gold and will provide resistance to the LED.

Add the LED and button. The LED will light up and tell us that the board is getting power. The button will allow us to reset the board. Some buttons have 4 leads, we only need two of them, so you can snip the extras off if you have four. Be sure to insert the long leg of the LED into the power, and the short leg into the ground(the square pad).

Add the female headers. It's not really necessary to have all these headers. Personally, I like to have a voltage and a ground for every usable pin on the chip -- especially next to the analog pins. But, I suppose as long as you have one extra voltage and one extra ground out, you are good.

Add the power supply. And you're done. There are a couple different ways to connect to a power supply. I'll write a little about that in the next step.

Step 20: Getting Power

Depending on your preference, you can create a bunch of different power supplies for your board. Check out the photos attached to see some options.

There are a bunch of wall plugs you can buy, but be careful of it's output, because you risk toasting your board.

You want a 9V DC 100-500mA power adapter, one with a 2.1mm barrel plug and positive tip. I don't have one, because I use mostly rechargable 9volt and AAA batteries.

There are many tutorials on how to wire a DC power jack, if you don't know how to do it.

Tips

Questions

240 Comments

Hey,I'm going to build one. Yet I have two questions.1)I have an orginal arduino. Im going to desolder the chip and solder a 28pin socket and plug the chip to it. So can I just programme that arduino and swap the chip to the diyduino?will it work?

2)I have a chip without the bootloader. Can I plug that chip to my arduino and upload the bootloader? or is there any easy way to do it?

1)yes it will work,but it is not smart.if you always move the chip,the chip pin will broke.you can do like this: remove chip from uno,connect chip D0pin (2) to uno D0 ,connect chip D1pin (3) to uno D1.

the normal way to program the uno works.

you can program the chip without a chip on the uno.

oh,connect reset(1)to a 10K(brown,black,orange)to +5v,and connect reset to (RESET ON UNO)uno can help you reset the chip.when you are finished upload,remove reset line(reset-reset),data lines(d0-d1)(d1-d0).WORKS WELL,AND AS EASY AS PROGRAMMING A UNO.

2)yeah you can,or use the way above.

i knew it from here.

because it is Chinese ,i translated for you,you are welcome! (I am from Taipei)

Hello, sorry for the delay in response. Yes you can swap the chips. Depending on which version of the Arduino you have, you can likely just pop the chip out of the socket. As far as the bootloader, you will need to load the bootloader onto the chip. This can be somewhat of a pain in the butt if you haven't done it before. However, there are plenty of tutorials out there that will show you how to do it. I always just spend a little extra to get the chips with the bootloader on them.

Hi Robonerd! I'm a frustrated in learning electronics so I'm just have only a basic idea about it. I was inspire by your and I want to make it one for my self to but Im in short funds. I have just a few question. Is there any available ATmega328 without Arduino bootloader? if theres any can I still use it? How about the FT232RL USB , is there any other option to use aside from it? cause it just pretty expensive for me. Sorry for my dumb questions and for my bad english. Hope I can get respond to you soon. Thank you!

Hi there, I get my chips from Sparkfun, they are about $5 US including the bootloader. Without the bootloader is only $1 less - about $4. You want to get the ones with the bootloader. Basically, you need a bootloader in order for your chip to know it's getting programmed. Without the bootloader, you will have to load the bootloader on the blank chip yourself. And this can be a little complicated if you're just starting up. FT232 is one of the cheaper ways to load a sketch on the chip. You can make one yourself, but again it's trickey for a beginner. Now a days, I just load my sketch onto an actual arduino and then swap the chips to my DIY board. Hope this helps.

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